Infinispan1 is an open source data grid platform. It is a distributed, in-memory key-value NoSQL store. Software architects typically use data grids like Infinispan either as a performance-enhancing distributed in-memory cache in front of an expensive, slow data store such as a relational database, or as a distributed NoSQL data store to replace a relational database. In either case, the main reason to consider a data grid in any software architecture is performance. The need for fast and low-latency access to data is becoming increasingly common.